Aunt Sue is waiting at the little breakfast nook of the trailer she lives in on the outskirts of Dallas. She flips the pages of a movie magazine in a crisp way that tells my sister and I we should have gotten up earlier. Against the thin nylon of her baby doll nightie, her breasts swell, the nipples large and nubby. Aunt Sue is 19, married, and pregnant with her first child. Next to her cup of coffee, she has rolled out a set of scissors, each implement in its own pink pocket. She is a licensed beautician, bored staying at home, she will practice on us. My sister, just five years younger than Aunt Sue, lets her tease and spray her hair into helmet-like bouffants and stiff flips with no bounce. She trims my bangs. But I bolt when she pulls out the shears used to inflict the pixie cut a number of my cousins sport, the cost of a week at Aunt Sue’s. On her transistor radio, people are talking about the assassination of President Kennedy even though it happened months ago. She slices the air with her wide-toothed thinners and says, “People told him not to come.”
A little shock when we learn that Aunt Sue is only 19 and then a stunning shock by her words at the end which pull the essay together with its fine thread of cultural bitterness. Very engaging and, speaking as someone who's been in Oklahoma since the 1970s, it rings true for today too.
L. was the good one from the time she was born. Different from her sister, who came along 11 months later. L’s once-dark, wavy hair has gone silver-white but the smile is unchanged. Her mouth, always blushed up with well-applied lipstick, lights up her face, and she is quick to laugh, a ringing, musical sound travelling up the high keys of a piano.
Elizabeth Boswell was just some lonely old lady confined to her bed in the house across the street who I visited because my mother said I should, and she turned out to be a painter, a reader, a listener, a watcher, a voyager with a bracing energy big enough to bear the self-absorbed ramblings of some lonely teenage girl from across the street.
When I turned10, my grandmother Maisie was the oldest person I knew --- and certainly the oldest person I loved. She has just turned 49 herself. She had curly red hair, which she enhanced with a little henna, and green eyes that she liked to cover with big, movie star sunglasses.
That summer she came with us to the beach at Skerries. The sea-air would do her good, my father said. I remember racing with my siblings across white sand so hot it stung my feet and then plunging into waves so cold they turned my lips blue in minutes. Hot beach. Freezing water. The paradox of the Irish Sea in mid-summer.
The air smelled of shellfish and the black-green seaweed that clung to the wet sand. Shivering and turning blue, we dashed from the water to be embraced in striped towels by Maisie, whose ample bosom stayed warm because she never swam. On a very hot day, she might discretely remove her brogues and silk stockings and paddle along the water’s edge, darting away from the onrushing waves which threatened to soak her long summer dress.
Maisie rubbed us dry and kissed us on the cheek for good measure and ushered us under sun umbrellas ranged along the wind-blown grasses at the top of the beach. She inspected our freckled skin for sunburn and coated our necks with diaper rash cream. She herself smelled of rosewater and freshly-baked scones. Maisie died the summer I turned 13. We left Skerries early to bury her.
I always picture him with his salt and pepper hair, combed just so. He dressed so neatly, with an elegant style, whether he was in a suit with a bowtie at work or dressed up at a family event, or even in casual clothes in his beloved garden. I picture him smiling, with light all around him. I see all the colors of the flowers surrounding him in the garden. And with a clean white apron and chef hat when he made us pancakes when we stayed over.
He exuded kindness and caring. And I felt from him such a rock solid moral center. He passed when I was 11 years old. I often wish I could speak with him now, and ask him so many questions.
My grandfather had a rough start, coming over on a boat from Italy as a teenager. He had very little money, which apparently was taken from him by the relative who accompanied him. But he was a survivor. Through his intelligence, determination, talent and perseverance, he was able to work his way up from being a stockboy in the furniture department to eventually becoming the president of a classic department store in San Francisco.
Aunt Sue is waiting at the little breakfast nook of the trailer she lives in on the outskirts of Dallas. She flips the pages of a movie magazine in a crisp way that tells my sister and I we should have gotten up earlier. Against the thin nylon of her baby doll nightie, her breasts swell, the nipples large and nubby. Aunt Sue is 19, married, and pregnant with her first child. Next to her cup of coffee, she has rolled out a set of scissors, each implement in its own pink pocket. She is a licensed beautician, bored staying at home, she will practice on us. My sister, just five years younger than Aunt Sue, lets her tease and spray her hair into helmet-like bouffants and stiff flips with no bounce. She trims my bangs. But I bolt when she pulls out the shears used to inflict the pixie cut a number of my cousins sport, the cost of a week at Aunt Sue’s. On her transistor radio, people are talking about the assassination of President Kennedy even though it happened months ago. She slices the air with her wide-toothed thinners and says, “People told him not to come.”
A little shock when we learn that Aunt Sue is only 19 and then a stunning shock by her words at the end which pull the essay together with its fine thread of cultural bitterness. Very engaging and, speaking as someone who's been in Oklahoma since the 1970s, it rings true for today too.
Thanks for your close reading, Rudy. I spent a lot of time in Texas as a child (grew up in NM) and those experiences have stayed with me.
L. was the good one from the time she was born. Different from her sister, who came along 11 months later. L’s once-dark, wavy hair has gone silver-white but the smile is unchanged. Her mouth, always blushed up with well-applied lipstick, lights up her face, and she is quick to laugh, a ringing, musical sound travelling up the high keys of a piano.
Elizabeth Boswell was just some lonely old lady confined to her bed in the house across the street who I visited because my mother said I should, and she turned out to be a painter, a reader, a listener, a watcher, a voyager with a bracing energy big enough to bear the self-absorbed ramblings of some lonely teenage girl from across the street.
A lot of information in one sentence--good job!
When I turned10, my grandmother Maisie was the oldest person I knew --- and certainly the oldest person I loved. She has just turned 49 herself. She had curly red hair, which she enhanced with a little henna, and green eyes that she liked to cover with big, movie star sunglasses.
That summer she came with us to the beach at Skerries. The sea-air would do her good, my father said. I remember racing with my siblings across white sand so hot it stung my feet and then plunging into waves so cold they turned my lips blue in minutes. Hot beach. Freezing water. The paradox of the Irish Sea in mid-summer.
The air smelled of shellfish and the black-green seaweed that clung to the wet sand. Shivering and turning blue, we dashed from the water to be embraced in striped towels by Maisie, whose ample bosom stayed warm because she never swam. On a very hot day, she might discretely remove her brogues and silk stockings and paddle along the water’s edge, darting away from the onrushing waves which threatened to soak her long summer dress.
Maisie rubbed us dry and kissed us on the cheek for good measure and ushered us under sun umbrellas ranged along the wind-blown grasses at the top of the beach. She inspected our freckled skin for sunburn and coated our necks with diaper rash cream. She herself smelled of rosewater and freshly-baked scones. Maisie died the summer I turned 13. We left Skerries early to bury her.
I always picture him with his salt and pepper hair, combed just so. He dressed so neatly, with an elegant style, whether he was in a suit with a bowtie at work or dressed up at a family event, or even in casual clothes in his beloved garden. I picture him smiling, with light all around him. I see all the colors of the flowers surrounding him in the garden. And with a clean white apron and chef hat when he made us pancakes when we stayed over.
He exuded kindness and caring. And I felt from him such a rock solid moral center. He passed when I was 11 years old. I often wish I could speak with him now, and ask him so many questions.
My grandfather had a rough start, coming over on a boat from Italy as a teenager. He had very little money, which apparently was taken from him by the relative who accompanied him. But he was a survivor. Through his intelligence, determination, talent and perseverance, he was able to work his way up from being a stockboy in the furniture department to eventually becoming the president of a classic department store in San Francisco.
Thank you for the help!
I especially need it to "flesh" out my non-fiction characters (which should be easier because they are real.
Would you follow me? Your critiques are welcome!